LHS Lecture: Hotel Lakeside: 1873-2023

On Sunday, Aug. 6, join the Lakeside Heritage Society (LHS) for their seminar “Hotel Lakeside: 1873-2023,” led by LHS member George R. McCormick, taking place at 1:30 p.m. in Orchestra Hall.

George R. McCormick was born on Easter Sunday in 1936 and first came to Lakeside in July 1036!  He has been to Lakeside some part of or all Summer each year since then.  He graduated from Upper Arlington High School, Ohio Wesleyan University and received the Ph.D in Mineralogy from the Ohio State University in 1964.  His professional life was spent teaching mineralogy and geochemistry at Boston University, The University of Iowa and the University of Balochistan in Pakistan.  Research was conducted in Pakistan, Oman, USSR, Kenya and Afghanistan.

He became interested in Hotel Lakeside during the war years when he explored the hallways and hidden spaces while visiting his grandmother, who always stayed in the hotel.  Later, as a student at Ohio Wesleyan, he worked as a houseman at the hotel and became even more fascinated by it.  He also met his future wife there, who was a waitress.

Both George and Pat, along with many Lakesiders became very concerned in the early 1960’s with the condition of the Hotel and the interest of the General Manager and some trustees to tear it down.  George and Pat were some of the founders of The Friends of the Hotel Lakeside which  formed in 1973 to raise funds and actually work at preserving the hotel to prove to the trustees that it could be a viable working hotel.

George and Pat have owned the family cottage at 171 Laurel since 1968 and raised their family there.  Pat was the first woman president of The Lakeside Property Owners Association and a Lakeside Trustee.  George was a Lakeside Trustee and chairman of the Hotel Committee.  He also was on the committee that wrote the first rules and guiding principles for historic preservation in Lakeside.